– You must report what the management wants to hear – VG

Incompetent spies, a culture in which presidents get the wit they want to hear, and 69-year-old Vladimir Putin who has locked himself in his own world.

This is one of the interpretations that appears in a new interpretation The project led by the famous Russian journalist Roman Anin in the field of drillingpublished in stories.mediaAbout the failure of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Intelligence has significant power in Russia, not least under Vladimir Putin, who was himself a former KGB agent and then head of the new Federal Security Service in 1998-1999.

The president relied on reports from his former colleagues, including the so-called “five circle.” Among other things, they are responsible for foreign intelligence of the Federal Security Service. The FSB received the right to conduct operations abroad only when Putin was in charge there. Until then, they were only operating locally.

It was this branch of the FSB that provided Putin with information about the political situation in Ukraine before the invasion, according to both this new investigation and a previous article from Medusa.

Reports have not been verified

According to istories.media, “The Fifth Circle” is one of the most closed services of the FSB. It specializes in collecting information in Russia and the former Soviet Union – and is therefore responsible for Ukraine.

General Sergei Beseda is the head of the department. According to istories.media, his deputy is Grigory Grishayev – who, in turn, has a deputy named Dmitry Milyutin. According to the gross journalist Anin, Grishaev and Melgutin were directly responsible for the information that was reported to the Kremlin about the situation in Ukraine.

My sources state that the briefings are written by operational officers. The management’s mistake was that they did not verify anything, but agreed to formulate the information they received, Roman Anin wrote.

In mid-March, journalists and writers Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan wrote in an independent online newspaper medusa That Putin attacked the Fifth Division. Among other things, Beseda had to be placed under house arrest.

The able journalist Anin writes that this was an exaggeration:

People like him don’t end up in prison.

internal noise

– Four sources tell us that was not the case. «Pesida does not touch. Such people do not end up in prison, ”says an acquaintance of Beseda.

But within the FSB, there is no doubt that major questions are being asked about the work done by the Fifth Division.

“Besides, many other officers are thirsty for the blood of their colleagues from that service and are waiting for criminal cases to be opened against them,” Anin wrote, quoting an FSB officer who mentioned this section:

– “They sell air”.

– Incorrect interpretation

Another source says according to istories.media:

– “They invented things, misinterpreted them and sometimes even fantasized, and management happily believed it.”

– For example, they wrote that the regions of Ukraine had no real connection to the Kyiv government, and that it would take a little push to make these regions “go to war” against Russia.

Anin’s sources are, of course, anonymous. But Roman Annen, an internationally renowned journalist, has previously shown that he has good sources. Several sources described to him why Putin did not receive the necessary information before making a decision on war:

– You must report what the management wants to hear, otherwise you will not be promoted. And so there could be problems, says one of the sources.

In theory, Putin should have received good information both from the 5th division of the FSB and from foreign intelligence – but it did not work.

A few professionals

Sources claim that the Russian intelligence has entered a vicious circle in which the leadership in both the FSB and in Russia prefers “executive idiots” – and that these recruit people like themselves, anonymous intelligence sources say.

It is described that there were a few professionals who were assigned the task of obtaining information about Ukraine.

A serious journalist describes how Ukraine was lowered in the FSB, because the Russians always viewed Ukraine as a “province” and made no effort to understand what was going on there. In addition, people in the intelligence services of two countries were mostly colleagues and old classmates. And the Russians believed that the pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych was safe – even though he was actually hated by “everyone”. The euphoria was great about the annexation of Crimea and the relatively decent victories in eastern Ukraine.

– No one has really tried to understand what has happened in Ukrainian society in the past eight years, this is the conclusion of Roman Anin.

Sources told him that the KGB relied heavily on Yanukovych’s people who fled to Russia after Yanukovych’s ouster in February 2014.

“They sent their illusions to Beseda in the FSB to justify their presence, and all the information was adjusted to ensure that they wanted to return to Ukraine and take important positions there,” said a former FSB officer.

Putin “in his world”

The irony is that the Federal Security Service infiltrates all government agencies in Russia. It is said that the FSB “approves” all who become police chiefs, judges, governors and chief executives of state-owned enterprises, in important positions in the presidential administration and ministers. The FSB has its people everywhere – Anin quotes the source as follows:

Putin continues to serve as the director of the Federal Security Service, only under the guise of being the president of Russia.

Meduza publisher Galina Timchenko read the investigation and is convinced that it is true:

– It is clear that this is already the case. Putin lives “in another world,” as Angela Merkel put it in 2014, she told VG.

The only Western leader who has met Putin since the war began is Austrian Chancellor Karl Nahammer. Description then Putin is in his own world.

– He’s in the war zone. I think war is essential to Russia’s security. He does not trust the international community. The Ukrainians are accused of committing genocide in the Donbass region.

Corona stone

both istories.media, BBC Russian Edition Other sources describe how Putin has dramatically reduced the number of face-to-face meetings with pandemic clients. Before every meeting with the president, people had to stay in strict quarantine for two weeks. This agrees well with the fact that the Olympic champions who met Putin at the Kremlin as late as April 26, 2022 should have been quarantined long in advance. This was confirmed by both the head of skiing Jelena Valbe and Bolshunov coach Yuri Borodavko this time.

– No more than five people met the nearest circle, if any, during this period. The work was very difficult, and we were the last to know about the decisions, a Kremlin official tells istories.media, and the BBC says Putin stayed at his residence outside Moscow, Novo Ogargovo, during the pandemic.